Aussies want to follow India's pick-youth policy

Brisbane: The young Indian team has not only showed the way to conquer the impregnable Australian team, but has also taught a few things to skipper Ricky Ponting.

Ponting admits that they should learn from India's follow-youth policy and time was ripe to blood youngsters in the ageing Australian side.

With most of Australian players on the wrong side of 30 and the majority of the Indians well under that mark, Ponting acknowledged the youthful make-up of the touring squad had given him food for thought.

"They went with a youth policy and brought some of the younger players in. I said at the time I was surprised that (Saurav) Ganguly was left out, but the younger players that have arrived have added some energy to their group."

"And that's what you need playing one-day cricket. What they've done probably gives us something to look at down the track," Ponting was quoted as saying in The Age.

Ponting said the question of player burnout had already been broached before Tuesday night's loss and there may be a case for a greater interchange of talent between the Test and limited overs squads.

"We've only got a changeover of one or two players now between Test teams and one-day teams. That's really unusual for us. The last couple of years, we've had up to five or six players changing over from Test cricket to one-day cricket," Ponting said.

"It gave a bit more life to the group. Not having much of a changeover now means the guys have been playing international cricket for a long time and haven't had much of an opportunity or ability to be able to get away from the rigours of international cricket."

Last night marked the first time in 23 years that Australia had lost back-to-back series in the now defunct tri-series contest.

"Maybe there's some sort of trend with us. We dominated last series in Australia and lost both finals, so maybe we have to look at some of the guys that played both forms of the game and rest a bit of a rest in the middle of that series and make sure they're nice and fresh when the finals come around," Ponting said.